This invention relates to a roll member which preferably is adapted to be attached to a road vehicle for forming, shaping and compacting a ditch. More particularly, this invention relates to a trench or ditch shaper having a cylindrical surface for forming or shaping the base portion of a ditch and a pair of opposed shaping surfaces for forming or shaping the opposite sidewalls of the ditch. In addition, this invention also relates to a method for using a roll member of the type described in connection with road maintenance for forming the ditch or maintaining the shape of a pre-existing ditch or trench.
It has long been known that significant advantages arise from the use of drainage ditches dug in the earth, particularly along roadways, for the drainage of surface water and the like. In connection with road construction, for example, substantial attention is given to digging and shaping a ditch or trench adjacent the road by the removal of earth to the desired width and depth of the ditch or trench and hauling away the soil by a vehicle as it is dug or at some later date. Although the digging and hauling operations are quite expensive, these procedures have long been accepted as a necessary part of the method of producing ditches or trenches along the sides of the roadway.
In connection with such ditches, a number of problems arise, especially in populated areas, when roadside ditches are originally dug or redug during ditch maintenance. For example, the removal of soil from a ditch adjacent the road sometimes permits the road or street to sink significantly disrupting the contour of the road bed and perhaps causing some removal of dirt from the land of an adjacent property owner.
In addition, it is often necessary to recontour an existing ditch to improve the drainage capabilities as the soil, sand, or clay from the adjacent property begins to sink into the ditch or the silt deposited by the water draining through the ditch begins to affect adversely the drainage capability of the ditch. In order to alleviate these conditions, the roadside ditches or trenches are dug or redug to improve the drainage blocked by silt or weed growth and to re-establish the sides of the ditches which had been sliding in toward the base surface of the ditch from natural causes. Weed growth is often a significant difficulty in such ditches because drainage ditches usually retain water in the bottom area that contains humus, fertilizers and a significant portion of biological nutrients. This combination causes rapid growth of grasses and weeds that block the free flow of drainage water. In the past, it has been considered desirable to redig the ditches because of conditions such as those described above and to haul away the spoil. However, it has been found that each time this has been done, the street or road and adjacent property may be caused to sink accordingly. Therefore, it is a problem in the art to provide an apparatus for shaping the contour of a ditch, preferably without the removal of additional soil from the ditch.
The art has produced roller-type devices, including earth compacting roller means, which are adapted to be attached to or form a part of an earth loading machine. Such devices are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,680,452 and 2,120,745. Each of these devices is principally directed to an earth compacting device whose contemplated principal field of use is in compacting or rolling a narrow trench or ditch floor. Neither disclosure pays significant attention to shaping, compacting, or otherwise working the sidewalls of a ditch by the disclosed device. On the other hand, U.S. Pat. No. 1,981,788, to Gardner, shows a bituminous ditch liner having a plurality of rollers, several of which are arranged to shape the sidewall contours of a ditch while rolling bituminous materials into the ditch bottom and sloping sidewalls. U.S. Pat. No. 690,893 discloses the use of a plurality of spaced conical ditch rollers for rolling a ditch between rows of crops. Despite the disclosures of these patents, it remains a problem in the art to produce a convenient roller member capable of both forming a ditch in the earth and compacting and shaping both the bottom surface and at least one sidewall of an existing ditch by the use of a convenient road vehicle. Moreover, it is an aim in the art to incorporate such a device in an attachment for a road vehicle such as a road grader.
It is thus a principal object of this invention to provide a device designed to both form a ditch in its entirety and to reshape an existing ditch, which device may perform the entire operation in one pass, particularly in those instances where the earth is not significantly compacted, without removal of additional earth. With the use of such a device, additional passes may be made for greater depth if and when necessary. By providing such a conveniently usable device to compress the ditch to the desired depth or width and compressing the sidewalls of the ditch to the desired angles, existing roots and plant growth will be compressed into the sides of the ditch to assist in the prevention of the creepage of soil and further fall-in and erosion of the sidewalls of the ditch. The periodic and repetitive compression of the ditch material will prevent the berm of the road and the pavement from moving toward and into the ditch.
As indicated, it is within the aims of this invention to perform the compressing and shaping operation without the removal of any significant further amount of material from the ditch. Not only does the failure to remove additional ditch material assist in alleviating the problems associated with the depression of adjacent earth surfaces, it also significantly reduces the cost of the operation by eliminating the need to haul away materials removed from the ditch. Moreover, the use of the device contemplated by this invention will assist in the prevention of the pavement of the road from breaking up and sliding into the ditch as seen in a number of roads. Still further advantages accrue from the invention in that adjacent property owners will not suffer the loss of soil either by operation of the device directly, or by loss of soil indirectly to replace that removed in a conventional ditch-shaping operation which utilizes earth removal as a salient portion.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent from the detailed description of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.